This is a blog for early childhood teachers looking for ways to expand and enrich play and learning in and around their sand and water tables with easy-to-make, low-cost apparatus. It may also be of interest for anyone who appreciates children's messy play.

About Me

Early childhood education has been my life for over 30 years. I have taught all age groups from infants to 5-year-olds. I was a director for five years in the 1980s, but I returned to the classroom 22 years ago. My passion is watching the ways children explore and discover their world. In the classroom, everything starts with the reciprocal relationships between adults and children and between the children themselves. With that in mind, I plan and set up activities. But that is just the beginning. What actually happens is a flow that includes my efforts to invite, respond and support children's interface with those activities and with others in the room. Oh yeh, and along the way, the children change the activities to suit their own inventiveness and creativity. Now the processes become reciprocal with the children doing the inviting, responding and supporting. Young children are the best learners and teachers. I am truly fortunate to be a part of their journey.

Saturday, July 30, 2016

I rarely bring out the same apparatus twice in one year. However, I did this year. In June, I wrote about a new addition to the channel board apparatus. It was a metal, ladder-like piece that fit perfectly into one of the channels.

Don't ask me what it is because I do not know what it is. I got it from a dumpster and it looked too intriguing to pass up.

Fast forward one month and I brought back the channel apparatus with two new additions to the channels.

The channel on the left has a gutter sponge. It is used in gutters to let the water through, but nothing else. The gutter sponge I found one day just looking through the hardware store. When I saw it, I immediately thought of the channel board. In the middle is a beautiful piece of tree bark I found on a walk with my grandson down by the Mississippi River. Again, when I saw it, I immediately thought of the channel board. The channel on the left contains DRICORE squares which are screwed and glued in place so they did not change.

In the channel with the DRICORE squares there is a ribbed tube taped to the side of the channel. That tube is attached to a large funnel that is taped to the top of a crate.

The crate is set on a brown planter tray that is taped over a second water table. The planter tray has a whole in the bottom so if water is poured or spills into it, the water empties right back into the small table.

This picture also shows the frame onto which the channel board is taped to give it the requisite incline. The frame is made from PVC pipe and is open enough for the children to access the water in the blue water table.

How high is the funnel off the ground? It is high enough so the children need a stool to reach it and, even then, need good tippy-toe trunk extension to pour the water into the funnel.

Here is the whole setup from a different perspective. This perspective also shows the black tub into which the water falls off the channel board.

I would be lying if I said I was not disappointed in the two new additions to the channel board. For the gutter sponge, the water went quickly through with a slight delay appearing from underneath the sponge at the end. The slight delay did allow the children to make observations about the water flow, but rarely held their interest for long. The same was true for the bark. I actually thought that the water would flow through those beautiful striations of the bark like a babbling stream. Instead, the water, for the most part, flowed right under the bark into the black tub.

One feature of the installation more than made up for my disappointment. The funnel and tube became a focal point for multiple investigations into water flow. Here is one example. The child in the video below first experiments with what happens to the water when he pours it onto the gutter sponge. Satisfied with what he has observed, he moves to the channel with the tube and wonders aloud what happens to water in that channel. He goes to the other end of the table to pour water into the funnel. He trots quickly around to see what he hopes is water coming out of the tube down the channel. When he doesn't see any water, he starts to trace the tube back to the funnel. He notices that water has pooled in a bend in the tube. He first shakes the tube a little and says that the water stopped. Then he lifts the tube up and watches as the water starts moving in the tube. He follows the water and sees it exit the tube into the channel. He feels pretty good about his discovery and expresses it with an understated "whoa."

Saturday, July 23, 2016

This year, the water pump was set up so the children could send water across and over the blue table into the clear table through pipes connected horizontally that were supported by a pink crate.

Once water reached the clear water table, children scooped the water and put it in the red funnel. A translucent hose that was connected to the bottom of the funnel carried the water back to the metal tub to be pumped out again creating a built-in water cycle.

Watch what this looks like in real time. The video starts at the water pump and follows the pipe into the crate.

The video delineated well at least one important aspect of the setup: children could enter play anywhere along the length of the pipe. In the video, two children were at the pump; one child poured water directly into an opening in the pipe; a little further down the pipe, another child spooned water into funnel she had placed in one of the pipe connectors; and finally at the end of the piping, one child caught the water in a metal bowl.

What was missing from that video was someone pouring water into the funnel. This next video captures that and more. In the video, one child catches water coming from the pipe. He is the same child who was catching water in the first video. At the same time, the second child pours water into one of the holes on top of the crate inches away from the child catching the water. The child pouring does so very carefully and just misses getting the other boy wet. The child catching the water goes off camera to dump his bowl into a green bucket next to the table. While he does that, the child with the metal cup scoops up some water and dumps it into the funnel. This is where it gets interesting for that child because he notices that air bubbles and water move in the translucent tube after he poured the water into the funnel. He decides to test his new-found theory that if he pours water into the funnel, both air bubbles and water will move in the translucent tube. To do that,
he scoops some more water and pours it into the funnel. He does not watch where he is pouring, but blindly pours into the funnel so he can watch what happens in the tube when he pours. He does a further experiment at the end of the video by pouring water directly onto the translucent tube to see the effect.

When the child blindly poured the water into the funnel, some splashed out on the other child who had re-positioned himself right next to the funnel to catch some more water. Why didn't the child get upset?

The complexity of this short video is astounding for the child doing the experiments. The complexity becomes even more astounding as a narrative further unfolds for the child catching the water in the metal bowl.

The child who was catching the water and then pouring it into the green bucket from metal bowl positions himself above the green bucket. Another child is along side him over the bucket. At first, they seem to be working at cross purposes. The smaller child pours water into the bucket while the other child with the metal bowl pulls objects out of the bucket. Then both children reach into the bucket and together they pull out a spoon. The one child takes the spoon and the other takes the bowl he has been
holding in his right hand the whole time and fills it up completely by
immersing it in the bucket of water. With his full bowl, he proceeds to
walk to the other side of the table to pour water into the metal tub
from which the children are pumping water. In the background there is a
chorus: "More water. More water." In fact this is what the child is
responding to because knows the pump tub was running low on water.

Lifting the bowl from the bucket and carrying it over to the other side of the table is no small feat. With the bowl being so full, he has to transport the water carefully so he doesn't loose too much water in the process. That said, he did spill a fair amount.

I contend that the narrative of the child with the metal bowl was astounding. It was astounding because it looks liked he was on a mission from beginning to end. In the first video, he caught the water in his bowl coming out of the pipe. In the second video, he gathered the water in his bowl and emptied it in the green bucket. In the third video, he switched positions to gather water back in his bowl to return it to the pumping tub. The mission was to get more water back into the pumping tub. How much did he plan this whole operation? Did it develop because of the chorus of voices asking for more water? What allowed him to keep to his mission even though there were hiccups along the way like getting splashed or working at cross purposes with another child?

I wonder if I have just contrived this narrative to try to make sense of the complexity of the children's play. Maybe by shaping the children's play into a narrative, I did not do justice to the complexity of the their play. I am sure I did not do justice to the children's emerging skills and competences. How many more narratives would I have created to give children their due?

Saturday, July 16, 2016

For many years, I wanted to set up a water pump inside. Last year for the first time I finally set up a hand pump in the sensory table. The pump was purchased from Kodo Kids. This is how I installed it last year.

I could have set up the apparatus the same way this year, but I usually don't work that way. For me, I have to construct it anew. What effect does my playing have on the children's play?

I made a few minor changes this year. A couple of the changes were made in the initial setup and a couple of them were made after I saw how the children played with the apparatus.

The first change was that I connected the pipes on a straight, horizontal line traversing the blue table. To make that work and to support the pipe, I had to set the crate on the end that gave this section of the apparatus the most height.

I also changed the orientation of the second table: instead of it being perpendicular to the blue table, I placed it next to the table on one of its longer sides. As a consequence, that changed the orientation of the crate.

These small changes created a significant change in the space in and around the crate. The new height of the pipe and the crate orientation created a bigger space for the children's operations.

The space was now more open. Not only was it more open within the crate, but spaces were created on either side of the crate. Though the new spaces next to the crate were small, they were still big enough enough to accommodate four children at the same time in their operations. Speaking of accommodation, the children's accommodation in the space is not too shabby, either.

There were two changes I made after I saw how the children messed around with the apparatus. Both of the changes can be surmised from the picture above. If you look closely, you can see a small gap between the two water tables. As a consequence, there was a lot of spillage. The second change was with the blue funnel. For the children's operations, it proved to be too small, so again there was a lot of spillage.

In the picture below, you can see the changes I made after watching the children explore the setup. By the way, the red funnel is connected to a hose that brings the water back to the pumping tub so the water keeps circulating between the two tables.

Here is closer look at the apron I made to close the gap between the two tables. It is made entirely out of duct tape. It may not be pretty, but it worked as intended.

One of the reasons the blue funnel was not big enough was because the size of the pans that were set out for the children to use. One pan in particular seemed to grab the children's attention.

This is a water pan for a dog. It is light, made of metal and has a wide mouth. And thus the need for a bigger funnel.

There is one final note about this set up. When the children really start pumping, the duct tape by itself was not enough to keep the connections secure. As a consequence, I also taped a wood rod underneath to make the line of pipes more rigid and less prone to disconnecting.

That is especially true when the children pull the pump from the side which they will do especially if they are smaller.

That was the technical. Next week will be the operational brought to you in a way only the children know how.

A child has placed a tree cookie under the yellow pan. It looks like a burner or a hot plate for the pot. If you look closely, you can see that two pieces of bark have also been placed on top of the apparatus.

I will often include big pieces among the natural elements. The big pieces give children a chance to work together or to test their strength. Why? Because children are are always looking for physical challenges (Axiom #9 in the right-hand column of this blog).

In the video below, the child decided to test her strength and balance while carrying a heavy object. She found a wooden log and lifted it off the shelf. She said: "I found a really huge cookie". She used her whole body to carry this log around the table to her ultimate destination, the tub of water next to the table. When she got to the tub, she dropped it in the water and made a huge splash.

The child was quite astonished at the size of her splash. (I even had to move the camera to keep it from getting wet.) I asked the child to wipe up the water on the floor from the splash. She did it willingly without a moment's hesitation. At the end, she declared: "That cookie took a long time to cook."

That was pretty dramatic, but there are many other undertakings that are not so dramatic but still wondrous in an ordinary kind of way. One child found out that she could spin the tree cookies as they floated in the tub.

You can tell she was pleased with her discovery because as she spun the cookie faster and faster on top of the water, she looked up at me with a big smile as if to say: "Look what I can do."

One child found that stirring the water in a bottle with a small stick could be an investigation of buoyancy. In the video below, he started to stir the water in the bottle with his stick. As he pushed the stick further into the bottle, the sticks pushed back and bobbed up between his two fingers.

He was able to get the stick to stay in the bottle, but then he knelt down and started to stir the water again. This time it did not go between his fingers, but he stilled played with the buoyancy of the stick.

How many times have I set up the float/sink science experiment in my classroom? You know the one where you have a tub of water with objects set next to the tub. The children try out each item to see if it floats or sinks. There is usually two trays provided with the words "float" and "sink" so the children can sort the items. I have done it many times over the years.

Well, along come these three children and they create their own version of this experiment. Their pursuits, though, are much richer. They are richer because they are authentic using natural elements. The pursuits are richer also because they are part of a richer context such as making cookies or stirring the water. And finally, they are richer because, instead of me posing the questions, they are posing their own questions. Isn't that where true knowledge begins?

Saturday, July 2, 2016

I consider the apparatus Table Covering with Holes one of the more unique installations I have built. Simply put, it is a piece of plywood cut to fit inside the sensory table so that it divides the table horizontally in two; there is a bottom half of the table and a top half of the table. The bottom is the bottom of the sensory table itself and the top half is the surface on which the children work. The children access the medium in the table through holes cut in the plywood.

The table covering has legs so from the underside it looks like a table.
You can think of it as a table within a table. Because of the expanse
of the sensory table, I screwed in cross pieces on the bottom of the plywood to give it more load-bearing strength. I also used those cross pieces to help anchor
the legs to the bottom of the plywood sheet.

When children pour and fill at the water table, they usually hold their container with one hand and then pour with the other. Children do this all the time. Often times when they do that they are holding the container next to their body. As they pour, especially into a bottle with a narrow neck, they often spill and water goes down their smock into their shoes. With the table covering with holes, the children can pour hands-free so if they overfill, the water stays in the table.

This child has filled her narrow neck bottle to the top. She actually overfilled the bottle, but the water just spilled right back into the table.

I consciously cut the holes different sizes. Part of the reason was for aesthetics and part of the reason speaks to one of the elements for building in the right-hand column of this blog, namely, make holes of various sizes. Holes of various sizes add an additional challenge for some of the children's operations. The video below is a good example. The child tries to pull a yellow pan through one of the holes. It doesn't fit and he gives up. I suggest he try the next hole over. He does and he is able to pull it through the larger hole. Watch.

Compared to how hard he pulled when he was trying to get the pan out of the smaller hole, I was intrigued by how deftly he floated the pan to the next hole and adroitly lifted it through the larger hole. When he lifted the pan out of the larger hole, he was careful not to have it hit the sides of the hole.

What I noticed late in the school year was that there was a lot more role playing everywhere in the room. That was true for sensory table, too. Here is a video of three children making "poison water." The clip opens with a child saying that he has drunk all the poison water. The play continues with pouring and mixing. Watch.

Where does a scenario like this come from? Isn't poison water a subject that should be frowned upon? Are they recreating something from stories they have been reading? Did one child start it and the others negotiate their parts on the fly? Does the color of the water have anything to do with it? Who understands what in the scenario? The child pouring into the funnels is an integral part of the play, but what part do the funnels play in the narrative?

When I watch children play, I often wonder where they come up with their actions because so many of them just seem to flow. The actions may be singular---pouring water into a bottle---but so often they are contagious---poison water. In any case, their actions are like ideas that come one right after the other until they are played out. Children think by doing; their ideas are realized in their actions. I am baffled sometimes when I hear adults tell children to stop doing something they are trying out or totally engaged in. You would never tell an adult to stop thinking. Why would you tell a child to stop doing?

Here are four more post talking about the Table Covering with holes. In each, the medium and the setup is a little different. They are table covering with gems, Jurassic Sand, water beads and wood fuel pellets. If you want to see how a couple of other early childhood educators adapted this apparatus using cardboard and a dry medium, check out this post from Cathy at Preschool Play or this post from Kristin at Exploring the Outdoor Classroom. Who knows, you might be inspired to build something, too

P.S. Speaking of building, I just recorded my presentation on the framework I use for building apparatus for a virtual conference by Fairy Dust
Teaching that begins on July 11th. Besides myself, there are three other keynote speakers and 19 featured speakers. It is the fourth year for the
conference and can be viewed anytime without travel or hotel costs.
Here is the link to the conference: https://io156.isrefer.com/go/summer16/tpbedard/
Check it out.

In an effort for full disclosure, Fairy Dust Teaching gives me a % of
the registration through this link.

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DIMENSIONS AND ELEMENTS FOR BUILDING IN AND AROUND THE SENSORY TABLE

When building apparatus for the sensory table, think in terms of the dimensions and elements listed below. Using the different dimensions and elements exponentially expands what can be built in and around the table.

1) ORIENTATION

a) Vertical

b) Horizontal

c) Incline

The incline can vary in degrees from slight to great.

2) LEVELS

Levels are important for children to experience space.

3) OPEN/CLOSED

4) SPACES

This follows from #2 and #3. Create spaces over, under, around and through the table. The spaces can be of various sizes to encourage exploration.

5) HOLES

Children need to put things in holes. Make holes of various sizes and shapes and on various levels.

AXIOMS OF SENSORIMOTOR PLAY

1) Children need to transport whatever is in the table out of the table.*Corollary to axiom 1

During the transporting, children will spill.

2) Children will explore all spaces in any given apparatus no matter how big or small.

*Corollary to axiom 2

More spaces equals more exploration.

3) Children will find all the different levels of play for any given apparatus.

*Corollary to axiom 3

Children will use all levels of play including the highest and the lowest---which includes the floor.

4) Children are naturally drawn to pouring, rolling, or sliding materials and objects down ramps, chutes, and tubes.

5) Children are compelled by nature to put things in holes.*Corollary 1 to axiom 5

Children will find every hole in and around an apparatus no matter how big or small.

*Corollary 2 to axiom 5

Children, whenever possible, will modify the holes of any given apparatus.

6) Children will try to stop or redirect the flow of any medium in the table for any given apparatus.

*Corollary to axiom 6

Children, whenever possible, will try to completely block the flow of any medium.

7) Children will always devise new and novel activities and explorations with the materials presented that are tangential to the apparatus itself.

8) Children will fill any and all containers with the medium or materials provided.

*Corollary to axiom 8

Children need to empty any and all filled containers.

9) Children will pursue their own unique physical challenges when working on, at or next to an apparatus.